Three years elapsed. Suddenly Renuccio again showed himself in Corsica. He had escaped from Genoa, and after in vain imploring the aid of the European princes, once more bidding defiance to fortune, he had landed in his native country with eight friends. Some of his former vassals received him in Freto, weeping, deeply moved by the accumulated misfortunes of the man, and his unexampled intrepidity of soul. He spoke to them, and conjured them once more to draw the sword. They were silent, and went away. He remained some days in Freto, in concealment. Nicolo Pinello, a captain of Genoese troops in Ajaccio, accidentally passed by upon his horse. The sight of him proved so intolerable to Renuccio, that he attacked him at night and killed him, took his horse, and now showed himself in public. As soon us his presence in the island became known, the soldiers of Ajaccio were sent out to capture him. Renuccio fled into the hills, hunted like a bandit or wild beast. The peasantry, who were put to the torture by his pursuers, as a means of inducing them to discover his lurking-places, at last resolved to end their own miseries and his life. In the month of May 1511, Renuccio della Rocca was found miserably slain in the hills. He was one of the stoutest hearts of the noble house of Cinarca. "They tell," says the Corsican chronicler, "that Renuccio was true to himself till the last, and that he showed no less heroism in his death than in his life; and this is, of a truth, much to his honour, for a brave man should never lose his nobleness of soul, even when fate brings him to an ignominious end." Giampolo had meanwhile gone to Rome, to ask the aid of the Pope, but, unsuccessful in his exertions, he died there in the year 1515. CHAPTER XIII. STATE OF CORSICA UNDER THE BANK OF ST. GEORGE. With Giampolo and Renuccio ended the resistance of the Corsican seigniors. The noble families of the island decayed, their strong keeps fell into ruin, and at present we hardly distinguish here and there upon the rocks of Corsica the blackened walls of the castles of Cinarca, Istria, Leca, and Ornano. But Genoa, in crushing one dreaded foe, had raised against herself another far more formidable--the Corsican people.